Latest Posts by poetatwork - Page 5

― Albert Camus, Notebooks: 1935-1951

I stare at the screen for hours, trying to make the words come out, but they won't. I can't compel myself to take a break, because there's this voice screaming at me from the base of my brain...

"You've been told you're a great writer, and you want to be a published author. But all you have to show for it after forty-four years are a dozen crash-and-burn writing projects. When you have the time to write, you don't, for a host of reasons. If you don't have something written by the time you die--which comes closer with every passing day--you've wasted your gifts, you've wasted all the effort people put into educating you, and you've wasted your life. So sit down and WRITE, you worthless piece of shit!"

How do you get past the paralysis caused by the obligation to produce? Is there a way to trick your brain and your body into writing? Or do you just slog on through, no matter how long you have to sit there to get a thousand words a day out?

Perhaps you could try to be kinder to yourself.

I always give myself permission to write or to do nothing at all (staring out of the window or at a wall is okay). After a while spent staring at a wall it's often easier to write.

Remember if you write a page a day -- 300 words -- at the end of a year you'll have a 100,000 word novel.

Via @danacea at Bluesky.

Neil Gaiman’s Advice to Aspiring Artists

Albert Camus, from a novel titled "The Fall," first published in 1956

stay close to everything that makes you feel alive

Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light, and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is non-existent. And don’t bother concealing your thievery — celebrate it if you feel like it. In any case, always remember what Jean-Luc Godard said: ‘It’s not where you take things from — it’s where you take them to.’ 

Jim Jarmusch, Five Golden Rules of Cinema

The Fast Drafting Challenge

It's time for the first writing challenge of the year. We'll be starting with fast drafting.

The goal is to fast-draft 1,000 words by the end of the week. Feel free to keep working on an existing project or start something new.

Here's the challenge in Writing Analytics:

https://app.writinganalytics.co/challenge/65a6929ca653549bd3ca1fbb

Why Fast Draft?

Even though it's called fast drafting, speed isn't the point. Writers use this technique to get out of their way and beat writer's block.

When you write fast, your inner critic can't keep up. You don't have time to go back and revise your prose until it's perfect. There's no time to agonise about ideas because you're pushing aggressively forward.

Once you have the first draft, it's much easier to see whether your decisions were correct. That's the time to fix things and tweak the prose.

If you struggle with finishing your stories or get stuck frequently, give fast drafting a go. It might change your writing life.

one thing i need to start living by is “become the thing that you want” if i want friends who throw themed parties maybe i should start throwing those parties. if i want someone who writes me love letters maybe i should start writing letters for the people i love. if i want to hang out at museums and pretty cafes maybe i should invite my friends to these places. and maybe even then i won’t find the kind of people i want to be around. but then i would have become the exact person i want to be around. and maybe that’s good enough.

when susan sontag wrote “I must change my life so that I can live it, not wait for it”

my main goal in life is genuinely just to have a good day

what you do really matters

Starting from where you are now, you choose. And in choosing, you also choose who you will be. If this sounds difficult and unnerving, it’s because it is. Sartre does not deny that the need to keep making decisions brings constant anxiety. He heightens this anxiety by pointing out that what you do really matters. You should make your choices as though you were choosing on behalf of the whole of humanity, taking the entire burden of responsibility for how the human race behaves. If you avoid this responsibility by fooling yourself that you are the victim of circumstances or of someone else’s bad advice, you’re failing to meet the demands of human life and choosing a fake existence, cut off from your own authenticity.

- Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café (Other Press, August 8, 2017)

Sarah Bakewell, At the Existentialist Café

by invastel

🎉 Write characters that you find interesting and compelling.

🎉 Don't worry about making characters too over the top, or 'too much'.

🎉 Write characters who want big things.

🎉 Write characters with conflict between what they want and what they need.

🎉 Write characters who don't realize they are doing harm.

🎉 Write characters who don't know how to communicate well.

🎉 Write characters with people they love in the way of what they want.

🎉 Write characters with amazing abilities who use them in ways that unintentionally fuck them over.

🎉 Write messy characters!

Mr Gaiman, I wonder if you can help me. I have so many story ideas but any time I try to work on one I get nowhere and immediately hit a wall. Do you have any idea what I could be doing wrong?

Perhaps you are expecting it to be easy. Walls are there to be climbed or knocked down or gone around. You don't have to stop just because it gets hard or you get stuck or you don't know what happens next. If you get stuck, figure out how to get unstuck. If it's not working, do what you have to do to get it working.

Take the story idea. Write down what you know about it. Write down the characters you know going into it. And then think about where your story starts (which is often not the place that the overall story begins) and whose eyes we are seeing it through and where and how you want to begin.

If you hit a wall, go forward, don't stop. Skip to the next scene where you know what happens. Write a bad version of a scene you can fix later. Do what needs doing to keep moving.

Did you ever have a great idea for a Story, but knew that it was far beyond your skill level? What did you do?

That was how I felt about The Graveyard Book. So I wrote and wrote, determined that one day I would be a good enough writer to write that book. And nineteen years later I started it, and twenty one years later I finished it.

“It is better to be hated for what you are than to be loved for what you are not.”

— André Gide, Autumn Leaves

“A long time ago I learned not to explain things to people. It misleads them into thinking they’re entitled to know everything I do.”

— Lisa Kleypas

“A non-writing writer is a monster courting insanity.”

— Franz Kafka

“We need to remember that we are all created creative and can invent new scenarios as frequently as they are needed.”

— Maya Angelou

“growth isn’t always constant. relapses happen. it doesn’t erase all your success.”

— Unknown